Visions on product endurance and designing for longevity

eternally yours
visions on product endurance
Ed van Hinte

010 publishers

Table of contents

Preface, John Thackara 12 Conventions 182
Introduction 16 Character 186
Careers 24 Angling for endurance, Michael McCoy 190
Generations 28 Modesty 202
Soundness 32 Leapfrog strategies, Ezio Manzini 206
Rituals 36 Guarantee 220
Immaterialization, Wim Hafkamp 40 Frequently yours 224
Identity 46 Sharing 228
Stories 50 Goodbye 232
Advertising 54 Bibliography 236
Consumers, costs and choice, Tim Cooper 58
Conservation 70
Inventing the future 74
Equality’s safety belt, Hans Achterhuis 78
Morality 92
Old and new 96
Matter matters, Peter-Paul Verbeek & Petran
Kockelkoren 100
Inside out 116
Engagement 120
Materials 124
Wear and care 128
My favourite things, Maria Koskijoki 132
Appropriation 144
Customization 148
Choice 152
Exclusiveness 156
Fashion 160
Conscientious objects, Stuart Walker 164

Preface For thirty years scientists , think-tanks and global

12 13

summits have measured and analysed ‘the environment’ - that is, the It sounds confusing, but the stories told here, when
planet where we live, our only home . They’ve produced taken together, make sense. Innovation occurs when an
a stream of such ghastly projections that many people organization fosters interaction between different kinds
have been de-motivated by deep eco-gloom. of people, and disparate forms of knowledge.
As a business or social issue, the environment seems to This describes perfectly how Eternally Yours has evolved.
be all pain and no gain. The ‘eco problem’ leaves us with In its original use, an ‘entrepreneur’ was someone who
guilt, denial, despair - or a combination of all three. brings people together. Eternally Yours exemplifies the
entrepreneurial spirit we all need to develop in tackling
But some innovators have actively embraced the the many challenges that stand between us and
concept of sustainability as a competitive weapon with sustainability.
which to re-position products and services in an eco-
sensitive market. Designers are being asked to improve John Thackara
the eco-efficiency of products and services by four, ten Director, Vormgevingsinstituut
or even twenty times. (The Netherlands Design Institute).
Design for sustainability means fostering innovation - not
just in products and services, but in work methods,
behaviours, and in business processes.
This takes designers into uncharted territory; they need
new tools, new skills, new understanding.

Eternally Yours is exemplary in this context.
An apparently simple question - ‘how do we increase the
durability of products?’ - proved, upon examination, to
be complex and multi-dimensional. Confronted by a
more complicated story than they anticipated, the
Eternally Yours team looked further afield for fresh
insight. An amazingly wide range of knowledge is
focussed on the subject of product durability in this
book - from nordic ethnology, to product aesthetics;
from new ways to shave felt, to the reasons people
polish their car.

14 15

Introduction So here are the questions:

16 17

Is time long or is it wide? Laurie Anderson Products themselves become waste far too quickly.
Something very strange is going on. Industry in Western Many products end their lives in incinerators and landfills
civilization creates an unprecedented amount of although they are still perfectly able to do their job.
products, and pollution to match. We have known this The proof is readily available. Research shows,
for years and the efforts to solve the environmental for instance, that about 25 per cent of vacuum cleaners,
problem are truly gigantic. The odd thing is that 60 per cent of stereos and even 90 per cent of
environmentalists hardly pay any attention to what the computers still function when people get rid of them.
enormous industrial effort is originally meant to provide: There are several reasons why consumers do this.
cameras, cars, lamps, solar panels, dishwashers, They may either be bored or annoyed by the way these
telephones, chairs, prozac, computer games, bread, products look and feel, or development of new
anything that brings comfort to our lives, and far more technologies has made the ‘old’ ones obsolete. If on the
clocks than we can possibly watch. They only consider other hand products are discarded because of mal-
products from the viewpoint of environmental impact by function, it is because consumers are left out in the cold
exploitation: energy consumption and waste emissions. when it comes to reparability of products. It all adds up
Knowledge on ways to increase eco-efficiency does to a lack of what Eternally Yours calls ‘psychological life
grow each day. Companies learn to diminish emissions span’: the time products are able to be perceived and
and recycle production waste. Industrial designers know used as worthy objects. We can only make products
how to analyse product life cycles and bear in mind to survive year after year if we realize that they are used
minimize the amount of electricity products use and the and cared for by people who see them, feel them,
number of different materials of which they consist. understand them and dream about them. Products must
Only a few years ago they just designed for efficient have the material ability as well as the immaterial
production, whereas now ‘design for disassembly’, opportunity to age in a dignified way. The Dutch
in order to optimize recycling logistics, is becoming journalist Henk Hofland described the product ageing
commonplace to industrial designers as well. Recycling process in one of his columns. He said that objects first
itself is quickly changing from an idealist strategy into a become cherishable, after which they get nostalgic value.
thriving industry. However it is not just the industrial Finally they end up being antiques. The problem we face
process of producing and recycling that causes all the today is that many products don’t even make it to the
waste. Its results play their part as well, for product first cherishable stage. They are designed just to be new
quality has become insubordinate to the economic for a short while. This is the reason the Eternally Yours
activity of material transformation. Innovation has turned foundation wants to gather and distribute knowledge
into a bad habit instead of a way to improve things. and experience on designing ‘immortal’ products.

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Its task is huge and complicated, as product life span is together with everything that may help support them as
interdependent with a whole range of factors, from the long as possible. They need a welfare state just as much
choice of paint, the shape and texture of coffee makers as people do. The second assessment, the absence of
and fashion, all the way to the organization of services, strict rules, stems from the simple fact that design is
advertising, and establishing guarantee conditions. generic in nature. In the same way that ergonomic
You have to start somewhere and Eternally Yours set out knowledge cannot possibly assert that all chair seats
in 1995 to organize graduation projects at different should be 42 centimetres in height, insight in product life
educational institutions. Several are still going on. extension is unable to specify universal product
Graduating students meet on a regular basis and characteristics. There aren’t any. The only path that leads
together with the Eternally Yours team relevant themes to improvement is by being alert to ways in which life
are discussed. Furthermore the foundation organizes spans can be prolonged, and building up experience in
meetings with professional experts from different fields, doing so.
economists, philosophers, designers, marketeers, This book provides the means to be watchful, for it
publicists, to discuss and refine viewpoints and consists of an extensive range of ways to extend product
propositions. In April this year an international Eternally life. It can be used to judge existing products-service
Yours congress took place. In it we discussed the three combinations as well as to support decision making in
main aspects of product life extension: Shape ‘n Surface developing new ones. The book can be considered a
dealt with products themselves, Sales ‘n Services was qualitative checklist. The different viewpoints may be
about organizing a system around longer lasting confusing because some of them contradict each other.
products and Signs ‘n Scripts investigated product The reason is that not all insights apply to all products to
meaning. the same extent. Furniture requires a service
All these activities have gained us a lot of insight into organization that differs totally from the one that
ways to provide products with the ability to age with television sets need. And surface quality for lemon
dignity. Hence this publication. The two most important squeezers requires other considerations than the one we
discoveries you will find in it are that we must go all out apply to a video camera. Every project requires its own
to reach the goal of longer lasting products and that, harmonized combination of solutions.
paradoxically, there are no fixed rules in this game. This book consists of edited versions of the lectures
To start with the first insight: product endurance is not a given by key speakers at the congress, descriptions of
matter of nostalgically harking back to applying wood graduation projects and Eternally Yours related Ph.D.
and leather instead of plastics. On the contrary it entails research projects. In between are brief essays that
a total review of the design of products and services, discuss, analyse and complete this information.

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Readers can use the book to educate their view on
product endurance and also for reference when working
on a design project.
The question people most often ask when they hear
what the foundation tries to accomplish is: can you give
me some examples of products that comply with
Eternally Yours standards? Unfortunately the answer is
still: no we can’t. There are, however, many examples
of products and services that can be considered
satisfactory in some respects.
Up until now Eternally Yours has been lifting more than
just a corner of the veil over product endurance by
collecting information from many different kinds of
projects, academic as well as in practice, and using all
the bits and pieces to construct a general framework
of visions on life span elongation. The next step will be
to create a coherent image of what product-service
combination development by Eternally Yours standards
is all about. The best way to do this is to address a small
number of complete development processes that
include all aspects of providing a product with a longer
life.

22 23

Careers Most products are incomplete. One of the

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things we found out talking to experts in different fields, is that Being alert to events like these or organizing them -
designing long lasting products involves much more than serious accidents excluded - and spreading the news
just the quality of the object itself. Right from the about them should be adopted as a strategy to support
beginning we did consider the need to embed products product character.
in services, even if it were just to help industries regain The implication is that products should not be left alone
turnover that would decrease as a result of less products after their market introduction. Design can be extended
being sold. But as object identity depends on to include everything that happens after that.
information that one simply knows, without being able to The supreme moment of transfer should not be the
derive it directly from shape or colour, we decided that finale of development processes but just the first stage.
organized adventures, stories and advertising had to So besides reckoning with discarding and recycling,
become part of the deal. For this reason Eternally Yours product design includes setting up or adapting relevant
is about complete product life design. services: cleaning, repairing, upgrading, transport, spare
A table or a vase or a television set is not complete parts, information desks and in some cases even facilities
without a well planned career that starts as soon as it is to support shared use. Of course the products them-
thrown in at the deep end. Or at the far end. selves should be able to undergo these actions and not
A fine example of a complete product is the Sojourner, be the impenetrable boxes they usually are these days.
the wheeled toy that roamed about on the planet Mars, In addition to this there should be a career plan for every
even if it was just for a month. It was not just designed to product and a plan to bring important events to the
perform. Its task and everything that could happen to it public attention, maybe with a special newsletter.
were thoroughly planned as well, including the strong Scenarios could describe possible incidents and
NASA public relations strategy accompanying the entire reactions to them, but also planned future events
project. It really is a shame that there are no people on involving objects that may have been in use for twenty
Earth with their own Sojourner in the garage. They would or thirty years. Product career designers will never be
have been ever so proud of their famous little robot. able to foresee every possibility, but they should at least
For that is what the information component can do. make an effort. In the end everybody will have a
It can be used as a reminder of quality. In real practice it houseful of proudly used Sojourners.
occasionally happens that newspapers and magazines
bring stories involving certain products: an exhibition or
a rescue operation, or a local gathering of Volkswagen
Beetle owners.

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Generations Even Robinson Crusoe was not the only one to

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use his table. And many products have more than one user through- hooks, rubbery for safety, to which they can attach
out their lives. Some musical instruments survive sheets, blankets and all kinds of other things.
generations. Stradivarius built violins that have been Grown-ups can use them for towels and napkins.
owned by more consecutive players than even the most Moniek Gerner has found an interested manufacturer.
fanatical Internet freak will ever own successive And the product that may appear on the market consists
computers. Some products may be designed to be of either the complete table or just the fasteners.
suitable for different kinds of use, in order to enrich their The design is unique in that it is explicitly meant to be
career chances. Moniek Gerner graduated at the used by more generations. It can be considered to
Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven with a clear involve a career plan that is expressed through shape
example. She observed, like many design students, that and detail. From it we can derive an unconventional line
innovation in toys is extremely rapid and that many of of reasoning about multifunctionality.
them are only used for a short period of time. The classic concept is that of the Swiss army knife.
A not very scientific study by the Dutch VPRO It combines different functions that are essentially not
broadcasting company indicated that in some cases related to different groups of people. It has only one
boredom even starts within a few minutes. kind of life as a tool.
So Gerner decided to design an object, ‘which The tent-table on the other hand allows two entirely
stimulates the curiosity of a child and can be used in different kinds of use that address either children or
unexpected ways to give it a better chance for a longer adults. Thinking along the same lines designers might
life’. The key word here is ‘unexpected’. It means that come up with ideas for objects that concern more kinds
designers can in some cases restrain from trying to of use for different people, for office workers and
foresee every possible application and instead allow cleaners. The same object may be used by one group as
freedom of interpretation. a hatrack and by the other as a broom closet.
Starting out from the idea of a cherishable toy A much more extreme example was designed by
incorporating private storage spaces for children of Oskar de Kiefte in the 1996 edition of Young Industrial
different ages, she ended up adding playful features to Designers, organized by the Sandberg Institute.
standard furniture. The first idea was a table As cars pass most of their time motionless in the streets,
incorporating small chairs attached to its feet. Inspired he designed one that people can sit on.
by the old fashioned box of building blocks, but thinking Addressing different user groups seems an interesting
in textile materials rather than wood, she finally decided way to root products more firmly in our surroundings,
on designing a kitchen table under which children could thus making them last longer. Distinguishing between
build their own tent. Underneath the top are 20 special generations is the most obvious way to achieve this.

30 31

Soundness Don’t put your feet up on the telly. Except of course,

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when you feel like doing so. It is a matter of interpretation and career very literally in mail order catalogues and metaphorically
planning. As we surround ourselves with all kinds of in shops where customers are allowed to watch without
objects and devices, they together form the space in touching anything. If they want to purchase a certain
which we should be able to feel comfortable and at ease goodie they can point at it and some salesperson will get
with the world. They mustn’t force themselves upon us it from the repository in a closed box with a matching
or disturb us. Our environment should allow casual picture on the outside. And when the object is
interpretation and use. This is where the complex and unwrapped at its destination, the receiver gets
important notion of soundness comes in. something that is exactly good enough.The lack of
Technical efficiency and the marketing prerequisite of ‘soundness’ may be caused by the fact that it can hardly
selling are gradually driving industrial product be defined in technical terms. For it is about reliability
developers into the habit of emphasizing visual under unforeseen circumstances, about the ability to be
characteristics and functional unequivocality at the cost useful for functions other than the ones described in the
of less superficial qualities. Products are designed specifications, like sitting on your television or putting a
according to painstakingly accurate specifications to can of Coke on your laser printer. Interestingly the
fulfil a certain task and to look good in the shop window. quality of soundness may in some cases collide with
There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that certain technical starting points of eco-design, especially
there is more to sound products than striking looks and minimizing use of material.
the ability to do exactly what they’re meant to do. Soundness deals with perception of quality.
Technical specifications must be met. To achieve this, all An object, for instance a discman or a compact camera,
defined product properties have to be ‘good enough’. may be strong enough in technical terms and at the
The casing has to be strong enough to withstand a force same time fail to evoke the feeling of sturdiness
of so many Newtons, the lacquer must be resistant necessary to make it last long. In the end soundness can
enough to undergo the 220 centigrade enamelling be taken literally: objects must sound according to their
process, power consumption has to be low enough, looks. As the matter of fact years ago a Dutch classic oak
resolution has to be high enough, etcetera. In the end furniture company ‘Oisterwijk’ advertised on the radio
you get a list of such properties with an inkling of with the sound of knocking on wood.
arrogance to it: if it is good enough for us makers it is
good enough for consumers.
The same holds true for product appearance.
Many products are meant to suggest a certain definite
identity. They take care of part of their own advertising,

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Rituals Eternally Yours can learn from death, despite the quest,

36 37

for immortal products. The standard way in which the deceased are The first two examples are closely related. One is a
being buried or cremated illustrates that western culture rocket filled with the deceased’s ashes to be launched
has lost many social rituals and that the ones still in use from a concrete platform on the shore. It explodes
no longer have their original meaning and power. above the sea thus scattering the remains. The other one
Most rituals only exist within the behaviour of the is a five foot balloon that also carries the ashes over the
individual westerner. They are not much more than sea. It allows relatives to literally let their loved one
personal habits, ways in which we are accustomed to do disappear into thin air. The balloon will fade away into
all kinds of things, from putting on our shoes to eating. the distance and in the end crash into the water.
Habits can be very powerful and hard to change: Van Bommel’s third idea involves a bier made out of
virtually everybody has experienced more than once blocks of dry ice, which is frozen carbon dioxide.
looking at the time and then discovering an empty wrist It supports the body of the deceased, cooling it at the
as one’s watch is still lying on the kitchen sink. Though same time. As it melts during the ‘farewell days’, the
being a meagre type of habit, it does show the strong corpse slowly and theatrically sinks towards the earth.
link between objects and rituals on the personal scale. This process visualizes the stages of the ritual.
On a collective level the relation is much more diffuse. The bier disappears without leaving a trace.
According to Hetty van Bommel, who graduated at the Although the examples can certainly not be considered
Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven, products to be immortal products, they do suggest that objects
used during events with a strong social impact can within social rituals can give rise to a certain emotional
possess the ability to allow new meaningful rituals to value, which in other cases may enhance product
arise. As in the case of ‘Soundness’ it is again a matter of longevity. Besides the ones for birth, marriage and
design, that facilitates interpretation rather than death, new rituals can evolve around, for instance,
imposing one way of using something, whether or not luggage when going on holiday, or chairs and tables
supported by an indecipherable manual. when holding a meeting. Not all rituals have died out.
To demonstrate this Hetty van Bommel proposed three
products that invite surviving relatives to be involved in
the funeral service in their own way. By not providing any
prescriptions on the way in which mourning should be
dealt with, she hopes the ritual will regain its dynamics
as different people can come up with different answers.
Within every kind of ritual the products are to be
considered ‘living symbols of integrity and poetry’.

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Immaterialization Why focus on material products? There

hypthetical development of expenditure on hypthetical development of environmental
consumption of goods & services for 1995-2030 pressure due to goods & services for 1995-2030

2 0.8
30%
traditional traditional services
(old) services
0.6
new services
20%
new services
0.4
1 20% 20%
goods / services combinations
0.2
goods
60% goods
30%

year 1995 year 1995 2030
2030

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may be a trend towards a gradual decrease in material consumption, to pollution has risen from 20 to 60 percent. On the other
as Wim Hafkamp shows: hand ecodesigned products are slow to appear on the
Sustainable development is often characterized as a market. Consumers want them but cannot find them,
development in which society respects ecological limits. and producers can make them but don’t know the
Currently our economies simply aren’t doing that. consequences. As a result they are often prohibitively
Still, we need to prevent and repair environmental expensive. Also they may induce the so-called ‘rebound
damage. That is why governments and industries require effect’. In the case of energy-efficient lighting for instance,
environmental policies. And that is why consumers need people appear to put lamps in places they didn’t light
to change their behaviour. before and keep them burning, the garden, the attic,
One question hardly ever addressed is that of whether because they use little power.
or not current production-consumption patterns can be At second glance I believe sustainable consumption is
maintained. And if so, the answer is either a resounding a real option. There are trends in the current economy
‘no’ from ecologists, or exactly the opposite from which point to a ‘decoupling’ of economic activities from
people who believe we need economic growth to be its physical metabolism. Both production and
able to pay for enforcing environmental policies. consumption are going through changes that imply
We hardly discuss what kind of economic development a large potential towards sustainability.
we need for sustainable development. To be able to explain this I will use Kotler’s distinction
Here I will focus on one highly contentious element: between three product elements. Together they define
sustainable consumption. the entire product. The core product is nothing more than
At first glance sustainable consumption looks like a the material object itself. These days many products are
contradiction in terms. The very word consumption sold in a box that also contains directions for use,
implies the degradation of matter: products, materials or a certificate of guarantee, etcetera. This is called the
other, to a lower state. Consumption refers to an tangible product. If all extra information, advertising,
irretrievable loss of exergy. Sustainable consumption company image and services are included, we arrive at
seems unfeasible because of economic development. the so-called intangible product. Together these elements
Several causes can be mentioned. For one: economic constitute the proposition that consumers decide upon.
growth, and the retirement of ‘baby boomers’ (people Four economic trends can be distinguished concerning
born just after WW II), increases consumer potential. the proposition content. For a start the share of services,
The extra money is spent on those consumption through design and communication, in relation to existing
categories that have the worst environmental impact. products is increasing. The intangible product gains
The contribution of mobility, agriculture and households importance. A good illustration is Coca Cola.

42 43

The next trend considers the increase in companies This contribution is based upon my essay ‘Naar een
offering the service that the product delivers, rather duurzame economie’ (Towards a sustainable economy),
than the product itself. In this case the core product is no written for the final congress of the Dutch Environmental
longer necessarily identical to the tangible product. Council in November 1996, entitled ‘Milieu als motor van
For instance several copier manufacturers offer an de economie’ (Environment as engine for the economy).
optimum price/volume ratio instead of copy machines.
Then there is the explosive growth of industry based on Wim Hafkamp
information technology, which is causing numerous new
economic activities. This may range from well-known
telecommunication and data transfer, to e-mail, internet,
teleworking, teleshopping and electronic commerce, to
‘infotainment’ and new media. In this case there simply is
no tangible product.
Finally there are the ‘old’ services. Intangibles are no less
real than tangible products. For years there have been
many traditional services in the economy: education,
health care, care for the elderly and the handicapped.
The demand for these services is expected to increase
strongly as the population ages and more and more
women participate in the labour market.
Our economy has some trouble dealing with these
collective systems. Queues and waiting lists are longer
than in the commercial sector.
If we want to maintain an economic growth percentage
of three percent, it implies doubling the ecological
impact over 20 years. But the trends suggest that
eco-efficiency can be enhanced by increasing the
service/product ratio. This means that consumption can
double, while the ecological impact is halved.

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Identity My name is Jacques Villeneuve. I’m a

46 47

formula I racing hero. People acquire and own things to give with a thoroughly cherished reputation of endurance and
expression to who they are and to show what group of Miele claims a twenty year life span for some of their
people they feel they belong to. That is one reason why household equipment in advertisements.
people will always need objects chosen by themselves. But rather than supporting old products these
The image of identity is also a swamp in which services arguments mainly serve to sell new ones.
are likely to drown if they lack material representation. Old things can in mysterious ways become objects of
Therefore it is impossible to reduce environmental desire too. Right now we can see a growing number of
impact with a shift towards intangibles if no attention is the medium-rich and not-very-famous driving vintage
given to the material component of product/service cars. In the Netherlands this is partly due to a road tax
combinations. advantage for cars over twenty years old, but no doubt
Advertising consultant Frans Lavell sees many difficulties this is only one factor in the growing interest for
in supporting old and experienced products with automobiles from the sixties and seventies.
advertising because in his view few people want to Their more outspoken design, in comparison with the
identify with those who surround themselves with worn uniformity that car styling is heading for, is probably just
objects. He illustrates this with an extremely short story: as important. The key here seems to be that old cars
‘She is not really one of us’, said one nobleman to provide a better opportunity for identification than new
another, ‘because she didn’t inherit her furniture, but ones. Apparently products need some kind of aid to
bought it instead.’ ‘They are not my kind of people’, identification, a strong reason to want it and keep it.
thought the widowed neighbour in her half a million According to Lavell one needs some kind of outspoken
pound suburban bungalow, where even the earth in the rationale for wanting objects, a set of reasons that can
garden was new. ‘Their furniture is so old. They must be formulated and discussed: I shall never get rid of this,
have inherited it.’ As an experienced specialist Lavell because... Products need to express through design a
claims that people who want new things are the best story that one can identify with and explain to others.
target group for advertising, when you want to sell That is what makes them personal. It is also what is much
products, that is. On the other hand the widow does more difficult to achieve with services, because whether
derive a feeling of dignity from her heritage. Linking self- they are good or bad, beautiful or ugly,
esteem with old objects just might be a useful idea for they are invisible.
Eternally Yours. The question is: how can this be
achieved? There are indeed instances of people
identifying with products that claim a certain robustness,
an ability to last long. Volvo for instance produces cars

48 49

Stories Once upon a time there was a small plastic

50 51

computer mouse. Every time its boss stroked its head it felt a strange Besems he designed six identical pearl necklaces, each
kind of itchy feeling go through its tail, a sensation it with a different experience. For instance, one had a label
never got quite used to. After that it could see things with the name of a famous designer attached to it.
happening on the brightly lit coloured screen nearby. A second one was packed in a bar of chocolate and a
Sometimes the light went out and this meant the little third one was pictured as a weapon, to strangle
mouse could take a nap. One evening something someone. Stories, true or not, can be part of a planned
occurred that would for ever change the life of the product career.
simple grey mouse. As it happened the mouse’s boss There are three types of stories. The first kind is created
was a heavy drinker and a smoker too. On this particular by companies around their products, like Coca Cola
occasion he had decided he deserved a large whiskey. commercials, or the adventurous car rally for the Camel
While he was pushing the mouse around, changing Trophy. Congress participants found the second kind
things on the screen, he lit up a cigarette, but instead of more powerful: stories that exist among users.
throwing the burning match in the ashtray, it ended up in Strong examples can be found around headstrong
the booze. A burst of flame followed. The glass stood products - the Citroen 2CV, the Apple Macintosh,
under a shelf stacked with loads of paper. Frightened the Harley Davidson - with true believers who sometimes
the man quickly withdrew from his desk keeping the establish ‘fan clubs’ for their favourite objects.
mouse in his hand. Luckily its tail lay in a loop around the This kind of product is often supported by magazine
glass, which was instantly pulled to the floor. articles. The fact that racing cyclist Van Vliet fell in a
The fire went out quicker than it started. From that day gorge wearing a Rolex made the watch more famous
on alcohol was banned from the house. The mouse was than it already was. The third kind consists of individual
allowed to retire and got an honoured place in the stories around mementos, valuable but hard to plan.
former liquor cabinet. The most important difference, however, appears to
Even a story like this turns every computer mouse in a exist between tales around products themselves and
potential life saver. Although the chance of something stories on brands. The question remains, why cars,
like this really happening is remote, the product’s motorcycles and watches produce more mythology than
meaning is changed. Stories are an important part of dishwashers, beds or office chairs.
product identity. Stories can be generated by user
experience and also artificially by ‘immaterial design’.
The possibility of creating added value by cooking up
associations was brought to the attention of Eternally
Yours by designer Marcel Wanders. Together with Dinie

52 53

Advertising Is this camera yours? If you happen to be the

54 55

owner, of the same kind of camera, or one of the same brand, you will however, because that is what products do after they are
no doubt be proud. You are in possession of something purchased and that is what producer-customer relations
that is tough enough to withstand the most challenging do as long as their mutual interest through the product
circumstances. Many watches claim to be able to survive remains intact by provision of services: providing
the corrosive wetness of the deep, but by golly this information, repair, and withdrawal for recycling when
Nikon actually proves it, in an advertisement. the period of use has ended.
Traditionally advertising and commercials serve to sell Communications and spreading information can support
new products. These days, however, the emphasis is all phases of the product life cycle and have to be
gradually shifting towards enhancing the relationship carefully planned. It starts of course with the origin,
between producer and customer. Brand names are the place where and the people by whom the product is
becoming increasingly important. According to made. After the introduction all kinds of things can
Wim Hafkamp, stock prices went up sharply when happen, some planned, like an exhibition on the
Consolidated Foods changed its name to Sara Lee. occasion of twenty-five year’s existence, participation in
Companies want to promote a friendly and human a movie, or presentation to a Nobel prize winner.
image. Shell can no longer afford to dump large rusty oil Some may be unplanned. Strange or spectacular
containers in the sea. This phenomenon coincides with incidents concerning the product or its providers can be
the growing attention to relation management. taken advantage of, not just to promote new articles,
The main goal, however, is still to dispose of new but also to make old ones more experienced and
merchandise. In the view of Eternally Yours it would be a dignified in the eyes of their users. And why not show
good idea to stretch the purpose of advertising further, what happens after discarding? Worn out objects can
beyond the supreme moment of transaction. be considered heroic organ donors for new ones.
According to communication expert Paul Mertz any Whatever the communication content, lying or
message can be brought across, including the kind that concealment of the truth appears to be dangerous.
supports the identity of products that in some cases may Reebok claims that no children are involved in the
have disappeared from the market years before. production of its shoes. Other brands don’t.
There is a story of a sick man complaining to his mate: Eventually dishonesty will backfire on them.
‘Boy, am I thirsty. Boy, am I thirsty. Boy, am I thirsty.’ Still, there is no harm in fiction or fantasy.
His friend gives him a glass of water. The man drinks it
and after a while goes on moaning: ‘Boy, was I thirsty.
Boy, was I thirsty.’ Until now advertising campaigns
stopped after the glass was handed over. It could go on,

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Consumers, costs and choice Designers are capable of

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creating household products which are far more durable than many implications of sustainable development has led to a
currently on the market. Companies claim that they revival of interest in what we consume and how long
would supply longer lasting products if this would products last. For example, industrialists in the World
enable them to maximize their profits. Business Council for Sustainable Development held a
There remains doubt, however, about whether seminar in 1995 on what it termed ‘product life
consumers want products that last longer and about optimization’. Governments in Germany, the
their willingness to pay a higher initial price. Netherlands, Britain and Finland have recognized a need
to increase product life spans in their waste strategies.
As countries in Western Europe have become more In addition, academics in a growing number of countries
affluent there has evidently been little pressure to are studying product life issues.
improve the durability of products, although there have ‘Sustainable consumption’ implies two things.
been advances in reliability and energy efficiency. First of all, consumers should have to pay for the full
People tend to prefer buying more products rather than impact of their consumption. At the moment the cost of
better ones. Caesar Voute, a Recycling and Waste dealing with waste generated by consumption is
Control Officer in London, recently invited his five year normally paid through local taxes rather than included in
old son to count the number of electrical products that product prices.
he could find in a household and promised five pence for Next, sustainable consumption requires the integration
each one. He was rather upset - and rather less well off - of consumption policy and waste policy, recognizing that
after his son managed to name 237 different items! the two are inseparable. Every act of consumption
ultimately leads to waste. There is a need for consumers
Interest in the life span of consumer durables started in to be much more aware of the environmental impact of
the late 1950s when Vance Packard in his book their consumption, and to question the concept of
The Waste Makers, coined the phrase ‘planned consumer sovereignty, the idea that whatever the
obsolescence’. There was great interest at that time in consumer chooses is right and appropriate for all
the deliberate shortening of life spans by manufacturers. citizens. As consumers, we have responsibilities as well
Throughout the 1960s many people expressed concern as rights. In particular, we need to recognize the
at this trend, but not much happened in response. cumulative effect of our acts as individual consumers.
In 1982 the OECD produced its report ‘Product
Durability and Product Life Extension’, but again little In my report for the New Economics Foundation,
practical action followed. ‘Beyond Recycling: the longer life option’ I defined
In recent years, however, debate about the practical product durability as: ‘The ability of a product to

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perform its required function over a lengthy period Heiskanen also notes that in Finland the replacement of
under normal conditions of use without excessive products is most often due to ‘relative obsolescence’
expenditure on maintenance or repair’. rather than product failure or breakage. I imagine that
What happens in practice, however, and how important this is also the case in countries such as Britain and
to consumers are product life spans? There is a America, but there is some contrasting evidence from
multitude of influences on consumers when they enter the Netherlands.
shops. In Britain a market research company, Mintel,
regularly carries out surveys of the key factors that In Britain the proportion of household income spent on
determine consumer decisions to buy particular consumer durables has for a long time remained static,
products. It’s evident from these that durability is fairly at just under 10 per cent. This is a growing sum in
low down their list of priorities for large appliances. absolute terms, as incomes have been rising, but it
For example, people shopping for a washing machine suggests that people are not putting a high priority on
are concerned about the reliability, energy efficiency and getting better quality consumer durables as they get
how simple it is to use, but durability, though related to richer. Many people appear content to buy relatively
reliability, does not feature on their list of primary cheap products.
concerns. Shoppers for fridge freezers indicate concern Affluence does not necessarily lead to environmental
about size or capacity, value for money, whether the commitment. The influence of the so called ‘green
item is economical to run and whether there is a self consumer’ has been somewhat overstated. It is often
defrost facility. Again durability is not considered argued that a growing number of consumers are
especially important. When people are buying small concerned for the environment and are willing to spend
kitchen appliances, however, key factors not only include more on products that have a reduced environmental
how easy the product will be to use and to clean, how impact. A survey by Gallup, for instance, found that nine
safe it is and whether it offers value for money, but also out of ten consumers would make a special effort to buy
its likely durability. Significantly, consumers under the products from companies trying to protect the
age of twenty-five consider durability a relatively low environment. Surveys by Nielsen and at Oxford
priority compared to older consumers, and it has University found that two-thirds of consumers say that
recently become less important than style and colour. they would pay more for products with environmental
However, there appear to be significant differences in benefits.
consumer attitudes between countries. A recent paper In practice, however, the number of green consumers
by Eva Heiskanen suggests that consumers put remains relatively small. In the early 1990s evidence from
durability ahead of price in some countries. one supermarket suggested that only about one percent

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of consumers are ‘dark green’ (willing to spend the lack of hard information about the design lives of
significantly more in order to live by their principles) and products. In making a proper assessment it is vital to
that the market share for green labeled products was differentiate between the cost of the product at the
only around 7 per cent. Since then, consumers have ‘point of sale’ and the cost ‘per unit of service life’.
shown even less commitment. Some supermarkets have A product that costs 50 per cent more than another but
actually withdrawn green products from their shelves. lasts twice as long represents good value. One company,
ASKO, claims that its products are designed to last for
This might have happened because of the pricing policy 15 to 20 years. However, it is worth noting that its chief
of companies, which makes many greener products executive said in a CBI seminar a couple of years ago
prohibitive to all but the more affluent consumers. that the profit margin on an appliance that costs over
Also there is a fair amount of scepticism about the £700 would be 18 per cent, whereas that on a budget
impact that any individual consumer can have on the priced appliance would be just over 6 per cent.
environment, and a lack of empathy between consumers The benefit to the consumer of a premium range
and companies, which means that consumers do not appliance therefore does not increase in proportion to
trust advertising claims made about the environmental the price. Higher prices are certainly no guarantee of
impact of products. better quality. In recent reliability surveys carried out by
According to a Roper Organization survey, more than 40 ‘Which?’ magazine for the Consumers Association,
per cent of consumers consider green products to be reputable companies like Philips, Bosch and Hoover did
too expensive. An acceptable ‘green premium’, the not always have particularly good track records in terms
willingness to pay more on altruistic grounds as distinct of reliability. In addition, premium prices are often
from self interest, is no more than 5 per cent. Only a very charged for additional features rather than better
small number of consumers, no more than one in twenty, intrinsic quality.
are willing to pay a larger premium of, say, 15 per cent. Even if we assume that longer lasting products do offer
My conclusion is that the price of longer lasting products better value, consumers may not act in an economically
must be justified to consumers on the basis of economic rational manner. There is evidence from sales of energy-
self-interest if the market is to grow. Thus it is necessary efficient products that consumers have a high discount
to question whether longer lasting products currently rate: they require a relatively quick pay back for any
represent good value in purely economic terms. investment. Moreover, many consumers are unaware of
the total cost of consumption. Karl Kollmann has drawn
Purchase decisions are frequently arbitrary. Consumers attention to the significance of what he terms the
often find making a reasoned choice difficult because of ‘hidden cost of consumption’, the money spent on

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operating and repairing appliances, which he estimates energy, were £11 for the Bosch and £20 for the Candy,
accounts for as much as 50 per cent of the total cost. and the repair costs were £24 in both cases.
There are also transaction costs - driving to shops and This meant that, with all the aforementioned qualities,
buying a product, getting rid of the old item and so the Bosch would cost £70 per year and the Candy £73
forth. per year. The Bosch therefore appears to offer slightly
On the other hand, the recent reduction in operating better value because of its longer life span. If the
costs for white goods, because of their increased energy products had similar life spans, the Bosch would only be
efficiency, means that durability is assuming greater a better buy if in addition to its lower energy costs,
significance within total costs. it was cheaper to repair.

In order to consider the evidence that high quality For the freezer example, I compared a Bosch GST2617
products offer better value for money, I recently that costs £520 and a Scandinova UF82C costing £290.
compared two washing machines and two freezers. I assumed that the Bosch might be expected to last 20
In both cases the appliances cost significantly different years and the Scandinova 15 years. The energy cost of
amounts, while apparently offering similar basic features. the Bosch was £32 per year, whereas for the Scandinova
I selected the products, arbitrarily, from information it was £61. In both cases repair costs were £25 per year.
supplied in ‘Which?’ and applied assumptions about This meant, again with the aforementioned qualities,
their life spans, which consumers might reasonably that the total cost of the Bosch would be £83 per year
make. It was assumed that a premium range washing and that of the Scandinova £112. The Bosch thus
machine should last 25 per cent longer than a budget appears to offer better value. This is true even if the
range product and a premium range freezer should last Scandinova was to last as long as the Bosch, because of
33 per cent longer than one in the budget range. In the the Bosch’s far superior energy efficiency. The
absence of any data it was also assumed, rather Scandinova would only be cheaper if it lasted as long as
unrealistically, that the annual cost of repairs does not the Bosch freezer and consumed far less energy than
change over time. was the case.

The washing machine comparison was between a Bosch These simple comparisons do not, of course, offer
WFF2000 which costs £520 and a Candy 1000DS priced conclusive evidence, but they do indicate an economic
at £350. I assumed that a reasonable life span for the advantage to the purchase of premium range products.
Bosch machine would be 15 years and for the Candy Given this conclusion, I shall offer three ways in which
machine 12 years. Annual running costs, in terms of longer lasting products might be made more attractive.

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First, environmental economists point out the need to containers. In the third place, there is a need to
‘internalize’ the full costs of consumption. In other overcome the problem that repair costs are often high
words, when a product is manufactured, transported and relative to the cost of buying new products.
used, it has an impact that affects not only the consumer Here, one might envisage the abolition of VAT on repair
and the producer but also the rest of society. work, coupled with the promotion of design for
For example, global warming caused by the use of disassembly and the standardization of parts.
energy will require protective measures around our There are, of course, other possible changes which
coasts, discarded products require the establishment of would be complementary, such as applying minimum
landfill sites or recycling facilities, and resources once standards of durability to appliances, just as in some
depleted are no longer available to future generations. countries there are minimum energy efficiency
One solution proposed by economists is ‘ecological tax standards.
reform’, switching from taxing labour to taxing energy, Claims that longer lasting products currently offer good
raw materials and landfill sites. value for money need further evidence.
Second, the total cost of a product during its service life This will only be possible once manufacturers are more
should be made more visible to consumers, so that they open and willing to release information about the design
appreciate that its true value is determined by how long life of their products. In order to attract consumers any
it lasts. This will require producers to supply information current economic advantage to the purchase of such
about each product’s design life so that consumers can products must be increased if they are to become the
compare prices in the light of the amount of activity, or norm rather than the preserve of a small affluent elite.
use, that they might expect from it - just as one buys This will require wider economic reforms by government
food products per unit of weight. One option is a label as well as much more effective marketing.
on all electrical appliances with the product’s
‘anticipated life span under normal conditions of use’. Tim Cooper
Another, highlighted in the OECD report, is selling
products with much longer guarantees. These could
cover labour as well as parts and perhaps last for 10
years or more. This would represent a move from paying
for a product to paying for the service supplied by the
product, which might be a welcome trend. After all,
consumers buy refrigerators because they want food to
be kept fresh, not because they like rectangular white

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Conservation Regular refrigerator disposal

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serves the environment. ‘She remains what she has been for many Then we have the products that do need energy but
years, an absolute strange delight, whose gift lies cannot be expected to improve in energy efficiency.
outside her achievements as an actress, is not tied to a They too are best kept away from recycling plants,
specific time and does not depend on the taste of the incinerators and landfill sites. The other two groups do
moment.’ have a positive expectancy of efficiency improvement, of
This quotation from Cecil Beaton seems to be the which one has an optimum life span that is longer than
description of a perfect product, but is in fact about its current one and that therefore needs extension.
Marlene Dietrich. Researcher Gerda Zijlstra used it to Zijlstra estimates that even for products with an energy
question Eternally Yours’ point of departure that lasting consumption during use as high as 80 per cent of the
products reduce environmental impact. total, life extension is sensible. Life extension is wrong
Well, it depends. Environmental damage is the complex only for the last product category, as its optimum life
consequence of production, use, recycling and getting span is shorter than or the same as it is presently.
rid of the leftovers. For some products the making Product life extension may have detrimental effects for
process may consume a great deal of energy and cause what production and discarding do to the environment.
all kinds of pollution. Other products use a lot of In some instances the relation with manufacturing is
electricity themselves and produce emissions indirectly, established. For instance, pantyhose last considerably
whereas there are also articles that misbehave in the shorter when they are made of finer threads, according
waste stage. to a fixed and known relation. A general statement is
Zijlstra studied several projects on product life extension impossible to make, however, as every separate product
in literature. Researchers appear to disagree mostly on requires its own decisions. The same holds true for
the question whether or not longevity should be prevention of environmental damage in the waste stage.
preferred over recycling. The ever continuing innovation According to Zijlstra the most sensible thing to do is
process complicates things as waste production and seek a harmonic combination of a long life span and
especially energy consumption tends to diminish over recyclability.
time. This implies that there may be an optimum life Interestingly product innovation generally appears to
span for some kinds of products, depending on their have a positive environmental effect and needs
expected change in energy efficiency. stimulation. Combination of life span elongation and
The researcher makes a distinction among four innovation through modification may be even more
categories of products. The first kind does not use any advantageous. The trouble is, that the market may not
energy when in use and should theoretically go on always appreciate efficiency improvement. For some
existing forever to minimize environmental impact. reason cars are becoming heavier and more powerful.

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Inventing the future Telephones should have the

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right to be puzzling. When experts discuss product life extension they extra functions like voice mail, voice control and even a
usually have an image of complete task performers in room thermostat. Hardware modules include a printer, a
their minds. So when a product is worn out, or needs to scanner and a baby intercom. For every module added
be replaced because of technological backwardness an icon appears on the screen.
compared to successors, they project this on its entirety. Modularity is a very promising option although the
How wrong they are. Tradition knows better. different elements of a system are difficult to define in
An acquaintance in Amsterdam, for example, lives on a view of future developments in both technology and
wooden boat, which is over 150 years old. markets. Every decision bears the risk of restricting the
This is the truth as well as a straightforward lie, because system for many years.
all the planks that the ship consists of have been Still, there are many advantages. Van Nes made an
replaced at one time or another. The vessel has been example calculation that indicates a 30 to 40 per cent
repaired numerous times and several parts have been reduction in use of materials in comparison with
substituted by improved versions. The ship literally is not competing products over a 15 year period.
what it used to be. To consumers products like these mean greater
Repair and upgrade can serve as a strategy to decrease flexibility as they can adapt them to changing demands.
material turnover and diminish environmental impact. In addition the uniformity of the concept promotes
When one part of a device stops doing its duty it transparency of control. This may strengthen the bond
shouldn’t be necessary to get rid of the whole thing. between user and product that also has the chance to
And when the power supply of some piece of equipment become tighter simply because it stays in use for a
is no longer as efficient as newer ones, it should be able longer period of time.
to yield its place within the product to a worthier The same may happen to the relation between provider
successor. and customer, especially in combination with a functional
Nicole van Nes graduated on a study to discover the leasing arrangement. It is a step towards providing
possibilities of life span extension by design for repair services rather than selling products. Van Nes suggests
and upgrade. She considered reprogrammability, self- follow-up projects on coffee makers and audio sets.
diagnostics, modular composition and leasing for a Although modularity may provide a strong grip on life
telecommunication product she had designed and called span extension, it has its limitations.
Teletangram. It consists of an advanced basic telephone It can certainly not be applied to all products.
with a small touch screen to which the user can add
different kinds of extension modules. Some take the
form of a chip card and contain software to provide

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Equality’s safety belt ‘But by and by they came to my

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watch, which I had hidden away in the inmost pocket that I had, and themselves, and tickets with writing on them in a
had forgotten when they began their search. character which I could not understand.
They seemed concerned and uneasy as soon as they got There were fragments of steam engines, all broken and
hold of it. They than made me open it and show the rusted; among them I saw a cylinder and piston,
works; and when I had done so they gave signs of very a broken fly-wheel, and part of a crank, which was laid on
grave displeasure, which disturbed me all the more the ground by their side. Again, there was a very old
because I could not conceive wherein it could have carriage whose wheels, in spite of rust and decay, I could
offended them.’ see, had been designed originally for iron rails. Indeed,
These observations stem from ‘Erewhon’, the topsy- there were fragments of a great many of our own most
turvey utopia of Samuel Butler, published in 1872. advanced inventions; but they seemed all to be several
The narrator of the story crosses a pass in a snowy hundred years old, and to be placed where they were,
mountain-range, and arrives in the unknown country of not for instruction, but curiosity. As I said before, all
Erewhon. At first the inhabitants behave friendly and were marred and broken.’
hospitable. Things change after the discovery of his At last they come to a case containing several clocks and
watch. The chief magistrate who is in charge of the two or three old watches. These are compared with the
investigation of the visitor, suddenly shows signs of watch of the narrator. Again an indignant speech is
horror and dismay. Initially the narrator surmises the delivered but, due to the lack of mutual understanding,
usual reaction of savages who have no experience of it has no effect. Only when the narrator puts his watch in
European civilization. But soon he discovers that he has the case with the others, the magistrate calms down a
misinterpreted the expression on the magistrate’s face. little. He seems to understand that the narrator must
It shows more hatred than fear. When a short and stern have taken his watch with him without any intention of
harangue is of no use since the visitor doesn’t violating the laws of Erewhon. Anyway he does not get
understand the language of the country, the magistrate condemned but is treated generously by the inhabitants.
conducts him to a large room, that turns out to be some What kind of law has been violated by the narrator?
kind of museum. At first he thinks he is suspected of contrabanding:
‘It was filled with cases containing all manner of maybe he has accidentally evaded the usual tolls of the
curiosities - such as skeletons, stuffed birds and animals, country. It is only after a long time, after having learnt
carvings in stone (whereof I saw several that were like the language and after getting used to manners and
those on the saddle, only smaller), but the greater part customs, that he discovers the real reasons of the
of the room was occupied by broken machinery of all magistrate’s anger. Some five hundred years before his
descriptions. The larger specimens had a case to arrival the Erewhonians decided to destroy all

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mechanical appliances. This happened because they In future communism things should know their place.
feared that in future machines might rule the people. They are only produced in order to serve mankind.
The narrator discovers a copy of an old treatise, Under communist rule only their use-value counts.
‘The Book of the Machines’, which brought about the Being a typical Enlightenment philosopher, Marx gives
revolution. It provides the legitimation for the man a central place in his universe. In his view things
destruction of all machines. Initially this severely don’t occupy any place at all in the ideal future society.
diminished the welfare and conveniences for the In Erewhon Butler expresses the same idea. But since he
Erewhonians. The narrator estimates they had reached is telling a semi-utopian story he can present us with an
at least the economical and technical stage of image of a society in which modern machines and
development of nineteenth century England. But finally, products simply don’t exist. In Erewhon only people and
after a long civil war between the machinists, who their direct relations are important. In the description of
wanted to keep the machines and the comfortable life- Butler, which - I admit - is rather cynical, the Erewhonians
style that went along with them, and the anti-machinists, seem happy without the presence of modern things.
the latter party prevailed and the Erewhonians found a When you read its name backwards you will know where
new happiness in a world without mechanical devices. to find Erewhon on a map. My claim for this lecture is,
however, that, although it may be nowhere, Erewhon still
‘The Book of the Machines’ is one of the main depicts a general feature of our modern plight in a very
documents that allow us to catch a glimpse of the astute way. It shows the anthropocentricity and the
uneasy relationship of modern man with his products. contempt for things that characterizes modernity.
Its key message seems to lie in the fear that in future Contrary to the Middle Ages, and to all traditional
products will rule mankind. It so happened that in the cultures for that matter, things don’t have a place of
same period Samuel Butler was telling a story about this their own anymore in modern society. The presentation
anxiety, the critical thinker Marx expressed it in a by my two colleagues at Twente University, Peter-Paul
philosophical way. Verbeek and Petran Kockelkoren (‘Matter matters’),
According to Marx, the things we make ourselves shows that this even holds true for the discipline of
acquire all the characteristics of ancient fetishes. designing and for some of the attempts of Eternally
They are endowed with spiritual qualities that we don’t Yours to strengthen the bond between users and
understand and they are ruling us instead of serving our products. I would like to illustrate this situation by
needs. Marx considers this a reversal of the normal analysing a philosophy that many present-day designers
subject-object relationship. The deepest intention of his deem important as a background for their work: that of
philosophy is the attempt to reverse this situation. Jean Baudrillard. His key message, strange though it

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may sound, can be summarized as follows: only people quantity of products with which we surround ourselves
matter, things are of no value at all. Even Marx’s use- must be interpreted as a way of making the necessary
value has disappeared from this perspective. social distinctions in a society in which these risk getting
I will begin my analysis of Baudrillard’s philosophy with lost with the rise of the idea of equality.
two quotations from Adam Smith, the father of the Smith’s key message is repeated by Jean Baudrillard in
modern science of economics, in which the ideas of his important study ‘La societé de consommation’.
Baudrillard are already foreshadowed. ‘The rich man’, Baudrillard uses the language of semiotics to describe
Smith writes, ‘glories in his riches because he feels that the post modern relations of man to his products.
they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world. In semiotics signs are studied in relation to other signs.
At the thought of this, his heart seems to swell and The reality that a sign is supposed to refer to its user, is
dilate itself within him, and he is fonder of his wealth, deemed less important than the structure of the system
upon this account, than for all the other advantages it of signs itself. Baudrillard takes up these ideas, which
procures him.’ originally stem from the science of structural linguistics,
For Adam Smith it is evident that the main reward of in his analysis of our modern way of producing and
wealth, the products with which the rich man surrounds consuming. He wants to understand one of the most
himself, is the envy or esteem of other people. In itself important phenomena of modern times: the continuous
wealth seems to have little or no importance. and ever increasing flow of products.
My next quotation from Smith makes the same point According to Baudrillard it is impossible to grasp our
from a more societal perspective: ‘Nature has wisely fascination for products when we assume that they
judged that the distinctions of ranks, the peace and mainly incorporate use-value, that they are produced in
order of society, would rest more securely upon the plain order to simply fulfil our needs. Also the Marxian
and palpable difference of birth and fortune, than upon interpretation, that in a capitalist society, products only
the invisible difference of wisdom and virtue.’ incorporate exchange value, that they are only produced
And he continues that since in our modern society of in order to make profit, in Baudrillard’s view does not
equality, the distinction of birth has almost disappeared, offer an adequate explanation for modern consumer
the distinction of fortune becomes of uttermost society. Finally, the symbolic worth of things that was
importance and should be displayed by the possession predominant in every traditional society also cannot
and consumption of many things. Only conspicuous explain the continuing flow of new things in modernity.
display of wealth is, according to Smith, discernible for Use value, exchange value and symbolic value are
‘the undistinguishing eye of the great mob of mankind’. replaced by what Baudrillard calls ‘sign value’.
In the vision of the father of economics the great For Baudrillard this concept embraces much more than

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the sociopsycho-logical meaning of a product. In language signs also derive their differential function
Without denying its importance, Baudrillard claims that from the fact that they are part of a system of equals.
our products more and more can be looked upon as For the same reason the differentiations we create by
signs. Their value consists in the place they take in the using and consuming products, repeat themselves in
total system of signs, in the way they differ from other ever different ways. Here we also find an answer to the
signs. Their value is no longer determined by the way question why modern societies continuously have to
they refer to reality, as is the case with symbolic value, create the suggestion of something new.
use value and, in a certain sense, exchange value. The mechanism of differentiation simply doesn’t stop.
Neither does value of modern products lie with the With this theory Baudrillard can perfectly explain the
persons using them. The only value of modern products manifold lifestyles that are emerging at present.
is their code, the difference with other signs, and At the same time it does not offer any foothold to a
consequently with other products. designer who wishes to strengthen the bond between
A well known but still clarifying example is the length of users and products, which, according to Baudrillard,
skirts. It refers far less to warm or cold weather, to what was present in traditional societies.
is comfortable or uncomfortable to wear, to modesty or Here equality was not the pervading idea. People were
immodesty, or even to elegance or the lack of it, than it different by what he calls ‘opposition’. Opposition is
does to fashion. And what can be said about fashion in based on essential inequality and plurality and this in its
the strict sense of the word, according to Baudrillard turn allows mutual enriching exchange between people,
holds true for the greater part of our way of dealing with in which things play an important part, not as signs but
products. I think for instance that it can easily be applied as symbols. They are unique, like people themselves, not
to the car. part of a system of equal signs. According to Baudrillard,
The need for social differentiation that Adam Smith was the bond between product and user or owner, which is
talking about and that characterizes all cultures, is what Eternally Yours is looking for in the modern society
satisfied in our modern and post-modern culture by the of today, can only be found in traditional societies.
consumer system. By their products people indicate
which groups they like to feel part of. In traditional For the purpose of durable design Baudrillard seems to
cultures this was not necessary as it was clearly marked have nothing to offer but the suggestion of a way out by
in a variety of ways. In the modern culture of equality going back into the past. Since this backward direction
people continually have to construct differentiations seems impossible to me, I have turned to two other
themselves. Here we find the main reason why thinkers, in order to find some positive suggestions for a
Baudrillard considers products to function as signs. modern and durable way of dealing with things:

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Hannah Arendt and Bruno Latour. In her most important products of our working activity.
study ‘The Human Condition’ Hannah Arendt makes a When we follow Arendt’s analysis in ‘The Human
difference between three aspects of our Vita Activa, Condition’, we discover that modernity severely
our active life: labour, work and action. In order to endangers the activity of work. Modern man is inclined
understand our relation to our products, the distinction to view all producing activities as labour, and all products
between labour and work is of the utmost importance. as consumption goods. The lesson from Arendt might be
In labour we essentially reproduce our lives. We make that only when we try to retrieve the aspects of work,
products that we have to consume in order to keep on will we be able to create products that have a certain
living. In work we build a world in which we can live. durability. From the viewpoint of labour this seems
We make things that are not consumed but used. And as impossible, even if we put a lot of effort into good
we use these things, we become accustomed to them. marketing or into weaving stories around products.
An extreme example of the difference between the When producers and designers look at products mainly
products of labour and work is the distinction between a as things that must be made fit for consumption, it is
loaf of bread that is eaten in about one day and a table, extremely hard to give them an independent and
which may easily survive generations. Products of work, durable life of their own.
being lasting things, give rise to the familiarity of the
world, its customs and habits of intercourse between Complementary to Arendt’s viewpoint and to the critical
people and things as well as between people insights of Baudrillard, the French sociologist Bruno
themselves. Latour pleads the rehabilitation of things in modernity.
According to Arendt they give us our identity. Or rather I should say, that he focuses our attention on
‘The things of the world have the function of stabilizing the fact that, notwithstanding the analysis of Baudrillard
human life, and their objectivity lies in the fact that - in and partly that of Arendt, things still play an important
contradiction to the Heraclitean saying that the same part in our modern world.
man can never enter the same stream - men, their ever ‘We never have been modern’, the title of one of his
changing nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their latest books, conveys this message perfectly. Latour
sameness, that is their identity, by being related to the turns the idea that in modernity only people and their
same chair and the same table.’ Arendt maintains, that relations matter (Butler, Smith and Baudrillard), upside-
the products of work are not just made for consumption. down. The outstanding and distinguishing feature of the
They have an independence of their own. They are part modern world, according to Latour, should not be
of the world that we have constructed as a place to live looked for in the reign of mankind over blind and dead
in. The permanence of the world is guaranteed by the matter as the Enlightenment professed, but contrarily in

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the proliferation of things. The ever growing networks
that modern man is building are composed of humans
and things alike. And in these endless chains things, as
much as persons, can become actors, ‘actants’ in the
words of Latour.
He takes a strictly symmetrical position between humans
and things insofar that he does not know beforehand
which kind of activity, ‘actance’, may be important in a
given situation. Sometimes the working of the thing will
carry the day, at other times human acts, for instance
rational and moral arguments may be preponderant.
But, contrary to our enlightenment beliefs, things may
also be considered moral actants, in so far as they
admonish or force us to behave morally. One of Latour’s
most famous examples is the safety-belt, that protests
when it is not clasped on before starting to drive.
It would take us too long to enter into the implications
of Latours work for designers. I only want to stress the
importance of his universe in which things get an equal
place aside persons, compared to the utopian world of
Erewhon, which envisages the abolition of all things as
the absurd consequence of modernity.

Hans Achterhuis

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Morality Never mind about design classics.

92 93

It’s durability that counts. If the observation that every product reflects a special target group to specifying energy efficiency in a
elements of public morality is interesting, then the dishwasher. The other option is technological
suggestion that designers could exploit this manipulation. It implies that a product can only be used
phenomenon is intriguing, because of its ‘matter over in a responsible way, like the safety belt mentioned by
mind’ presupposition. Hans Achterhuis. This kind of moralizing is a lot more
In the past this kind of thinking was not uncommon. solid, because if done in the right way it leaves the user
Baroque art in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries, without any decisions, for example, with regard to
for instance, had to reemphasize Roman Catholic values driving beyond the speed limit or opening a dangerous
as opposed to Reformation ideas, and its exuberance compartment in a computer. It is simply impossible
had to impress the public with the wealth and power of because of certain technical tricks.
its leaders. Later on, just after the 1900s, Modernists
sincerely believed that austere geometric shapes of Eternally Yours morality involves not wasting any object.
buildings and objects would uplift the masses. It might be interesting to explore ways to achieve this.
The issue of built-in morality raises several questions. The symbolic option leads us straight to the heart of
The first one: is it at all possible to design for a different what started off Eternally Yours in the first place.
morality than the ruling one in order to change Objects should somehow express that throwing them
behaviour? Even more pressing is the question who away is a crying sin at all times. One way to do this is a
decides what kind of behaviour a certain product should simple matter of quality. If a well-made chair hardly
enforce. It would take hours and hours of discussions shows any traces of wear as it gets older, chances are
just to determine responsibilities. that it will stay in use for a long time. And if time does
Suppose society can solve these fundamental problems, influence its appearance it should become more
then designers are left with numerous issues of a more beautiful with age. Moreover products should evoke
practical nature. To start with, they can distinguish care and respect.
between expressing morality in a symbolic way, like Technological solutions to make objects stay in one
using the colour red or printed words to prohibit or place or to electronically attach them to one or more
stimulate certain actions. Something like this is manifest individuals are feasible. It is for example possible (and
in present American society where the extreme not all that expensive) to link an object to, say, a
popularity of law suits indirectly provides all products transponder implanted in someone’s earlobe.
with a host of patronizing warnings. There are lots of But such ideas don’t have the right feel to them. What
more subtle variations on this theme, all the way from remains is that product quality and its ability to age is a
indicating by shape and texture that a chair is meant for moral issue.

94 95

Old and new We present the newest of the oldest.

96 97

Visions on product endurance and designing for longevity

Visions on product endurance and designing for longevity

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